Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The court acquitted a fifth defendant.

The Lagos-based newspaper Punch reported that “one of the prosecution witnesses, a Catholic priest who survived the incident, gave a chilling account of how the assailants detonated at least three explosive devices inside the church, triggering panic and bloodshed among worshippers.”

At a press conference that lasted nearly an hour (video), the director of the Holy See Press Office discussed Pope Leo’s upcoming apostolic journey to Spain.

For a quarter century, the police investigation “has remained stalled, with frequent changes of investigating officers hindering progress,” UCA News reported. Nirmol Rozario, president of the ecumenical Bangladesh Christian Association, said that “for 25 years we have been making the same demands for a proper investigation and justice, but nothing has happened.”

Located in South Asia, Bangladesh (map), a nation of 170 million—the world’s eighth most populous—is 89% Muslim and 9% Hindu.

“Our goal must be, as Pope Leo states, to ‘enable each person to live with dignity through his or her own work,’ as well as ensure there is just compensation for that work,” said Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green of Wilcannia-Forbes, the bishops’ delegate for employment relations. (Bishop Macbeth-Green was citing Magnifica Humanitas.)

Under the agreement, the Spanish Ombudsman reviews “each case through an independent team of experts and propose[s] compensation,” the Associated Press reported. “If no agreement is reached, the case will go to a joint committee with representatives from the Church, the ombudsman’s office and victims’ groups. If that committee can’t agree, the ombudsman has the final word.”

Bishop Zapata told ACI Prensa that “many of our parishioners who are baptized do not live out their faith in an orthodox manner” and take part in “spiritist practices or other types—satanic ones, or the so-called ‘Santa Muerte.’”

The bishops thus saw a “growing need to address these situations of spiritual, moral, and physical suffering of some persons, which may have a malevolent origin” and to “support the exorcists who were already undergoing training courses,” the prelate said.

Bishop Zapata warned that if Satan “wreaks havoc upon us, it is because we first allowed him to do so. We venture onto his paths and let him into our lives.” When a bishop appoints an exorcist, the priest should be “a Eucharistic priest, a Marian priest, a priest who enjoys caring for those in need, especially the sick.”

At the conclusion of his June 3 general audience, Pope Leo XIV met with seven Syrian refugee girls who left the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan to compete in a tae kwon do tournament in Rome.